As a crowd watched Chicago firefighters remove the victim from beneath the bus, bystanders said the accident appeared to happen when the girl’s mother left her daughter briefly with a neighbor who turned away for a moment just as the child ran off.

The bus was traveling north when the little girl, Cherish C. Meyers, ran into the street from the curb where a group of people were standing, authorities said. The driver swerved to avoid contact, but the side of the accordion-style extended bus struck the child, pinning her underneath, police on the scene said.

Meyers, who lived in the same block where she was struck, was pronounced dead on the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. The driver was taken to the University of Chicago medical center for unspecified reasons, police said. Officers took the mother to a nearby house to interview her about the accident, and the Major Accidents Investigation Unit was investigating.

A woman who told police on the scene that she was the child’s great aunt questioned how this could happen, yelling, “You can’t ... explain that to me, how you let my grand niece run into the street!”

South Shore Drive gets heavy traffic, neighbors said, because it leads to nearby Lake Shore Drive, and children walk through the area to a nearby school and to Rainbow Beach, where Memorial Day picnickers were barbecuing just a block from the scene of the accident.

Residents, some holding babies on their hips, suggested that a speed bump would slow traffic and a gate on the parking lot would help keep children safe, but in this case the child was across the street, outside another apartment building.

“This was a tragedy,” neighbor Shante Drane said. “We’re like a big family here. Everybody’s kids play with everybody else. But kids move so fast.”

CTA spokesman Steve Mayberry said it was too early to offer any details on the accident or the driver, but he said the transit agency was conducting its own investigation.